Site Contamination, Clovelly Park and Mitchell Park

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:47): To the Premier: was the Emergency Management Committee meeting called to resolve the conflict between the Minister for Health and the Minister for the Environment as to who was to take the lead on this contamination issue?

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier) (14:47): There was no conflict about the way in which this matter was to be dealt with. Remember, at this point in the process what we were dealing with were the number of potential phases. The first phase was to be dealt with by the Minister for Environment. That was a settled matter at that time. At some future point, a point we have not yet arrived at, it is likely that there will need to be a further phase, because it was contemplated that there may well be effects that essentially go beyond the remit of the Minister for Environment.

Out of an abundance of preparation for that matter, there have been discussions about who should be the lead minister after the initial phase, which is not even yet complete, where the Minister for Environment was handling this matter. So there is no conflict, there is just the orderly discussion about what the government's arrangements would be for a matter of this sort, which obviously traverses a range of portfolio areas, including environment, health, and potentially into other areas that involve land use, not necessarily government land, but obviously Minister for Social Housing and potentially private sector land use. All of those particular portfolios were involved and so a discussion about what should happen beyond that point was had.